More than the world heavyweight championship was at stake when Joe Louis fought Germany's Max Schmeling on June 22, 1938; it was billed as a contest between nations, races, and political ideologies. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels boasted that Schmeling would crush his "inferior" black opponent, while President Roosevelt hosted Louis at the White House and said, "Joe, we need muscles like yours to beat Germany." For Louis, it was also a chance to avenge the only defeat in his career, a knockout loss to Schmeling two years earlier. Patrick Myler traces the lives and careers of both boxers before and after the fight, including Schmeling's efforts to protect Jewish friends in Nazi Germany, and the fighters' friendship in the postwar years.